Minister Thomas L. Bowen
Guest Writer
For the message of the cross is
foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who
are being saved it is the power of God.
1 Corinthians 1:18 - NIV
The Message that points to Christ on the
Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hell-bent on
destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it
makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and
most powerfully as it turns out.
1 Corinthians 1:18 - The Message
During the 1975-76 school year at Yale Divinity School,
Dr. Gardner C. Taylor, “the dean of the Nation’s Black
preachers” was the guest lecturer for the prestigious
Lyman Beecher Lecture Series. The second of the four
lectures that he would eventually give was entitled
The Foolishness of Preaching. The lecture focused
on the monumental task of the preacher to week-in and
week-out (and in some cases two or more times on a
Sunday) proclaim the powerful message of the redeeming
and transformative power of our Lord and Savior. Black
preachers, lettered and unlettered, male and female,
have been revered for their ability to point a colorful
picture of hope and salvation for a people who have been
given black and white portraits of pain and suffering.
Those who run our Tape and CD Ministry can better tell
you about the number of parishioners who depend on the
Word of God from the man and woman of God to help get
them through their week. Dr. Taylor reminds us that
“God might have found so many other ways to spread the
Gospel of the love of God. He might have written His
love on the leaves of trees and blowing winds would have
sent news of deliverance and redemption far and wide.
God might have written His love in the skies and in the
rising sun so that men looking upward could have read
the message, ‘God so loved the world’. He might
have made the ocean sing His love and nightingales to
chant it. Neither of these, not even angels, could ever
preach and say, however, ‘I’ve been redeemed’. So this
is a Gospel for sinners saved by Grace and only saved
sinners can preach.”
It is sheer arrogance and ignorance to believe that one
individual can of his or her own desire, education and
gifts deliver a Word from God - this is the foolishness
of preaching. It is only because of the drama, shame
and victory of the Cross along with the wonder working
power of the Holy Spirit that anyone is able to offer a
glimpse of glory.
With the “growth” of many churches there is something
that is missing in many arenas of worship. Dr. Taylor
in his Beecher Lecture and the Apostle Paul in his first
letter to the Church at Corinth talk about the
foolishness of preaching, but there is now a concern
about the preaching of foolishness - which leads me to
the point of my writing today on the 16th Observance of
the Anniversary of our Pastor, The Reverend Wallace
Charles Smith. How good it is to have a pastor who
“gets it right”. A man who knows that people are hungry
and thirsty for the Gospel. A man more concerned about
the promises of God rather than the praises of man. Happy
Anniversary Pastor!
___________________________________________________
Readings for Sunday, July
22, 2007:
Amos 8:1-12; Psalm 52; Colossians 1:15-28; Luke 10:38-42
|
